Alien Nation #6 - Passing Fancy (8 page)

George nodded tightly. “I thought we were too,” he conceded, quietly. “And when you told me this morning what that young actress was doing to herself—it was an abstraction. Not to mention that I was trying, for your sake, to be sympathetic.”

“I appreciate the effort. Cathy told me how most Newcomers feel about that stuff.”

“I thought I was willing to be open-minded. But those
pictures
—they were an
abomination.
I could not stay in that room a moment longer.”

A rueful grin from Matt. “Yeah, I noticed. So what now?”

George shrugged a bit helplessly. “I suppose we—”

His thought was interrupted as the doctor’s door opened and a voice boomed out,
“Gentlemen!”

George and Matt looked back toward the office, to see a porcine, well-appointed man with thinning hair and beady eyes approaching. He wore a lab coat.

“Check it out,” announced Matt with some amusement, under his breath: “the mountain’s coming to Mohammed.”

Before George could question this new idiom, the mountain (aptly identified, in George’s view) was upon them, smiling obsequiously.

“Is anything wrong?”

“Kind of a startling display you have in there,” Matt offered. “You know, if you’re not prepared for it, I mean.”

“I understand,” said the mountain, and without waiting for George to extend his hand, grabbed it. “I am Dr. Chris
tian
LeBeque,” he proclaimed, his otherwise unaccented voice going inexplicably nasal at the pronunciation of his first name, “and I’ve seen your reaction before. The shock of the new, that’s all. Believe me, there’s nothing of which to be affrighted.”

Matt flicked a gaze at George.
Affrighted???

Not releasing George’s hand, LeBeque inspected it. Then looked at George’s face, not as if he were a person, but as if he were a specimen. LeBeque raised a hand, touched fingertips to the outline of George’s jaw, gently angling his head into better light.

“Oh, yes indeed, we can do wonderful things for you.”

George nearly slapped the hand away—with his strength, he might have broken the doctor’s arm in the process, for good measure—but out of the corner of an eye, he caught a shift in his partner’s expression.
Let this clown ramble a bit,
it tacitly urged. And so George bore the man’s stare, endured his unwelcome touch.

“I must say,” George commented, gingerly trying to extricate himself and at length succeeding, “you do go out of your way to . . .
woo
your potential clientele.”

LeBeque tut-tutted. “Let’s not refer to
clients,
please.
Patients.
And, yes, my zealousness can appear to be, oh, why not say the ugly word,
aggression
—but it’s misleading, truly. I just get concerned when it seems a patient may not be fully informed as to what we do here. You should have all the facts before coming to a decision.”

“I told you this guy didn’t have to drum up business, George,” Matt said, playing the part broadly but, as it happened, convincingly.

“Of course not,” LeBeque laughed self-deprecatingly. “Look around you. What need? No, my interest is in doing what’s best for
you.
Mister—?”

“Francisco.”

“Mister
Francisco!” Grandiloquent. “Please. Come back in. I promise not to keep you waiting long. And the first consultation is free,” he added pointedly.

“Fine,” George said, having decided to play along. “In truth I do not know quite why I was so apprehensive. I had been told your rates were equitable and your service—top drawer.”

“I’m so pleased,” beamed LeBeque, gesturing toward his office, beckoning them to follow. And as they walked: “Who recommended me to you?”

“A Miss Fancy Delancey.”

LeBeque froze in his tracks, hand on the doorknob. He turned about slowly, scowling and growling.

“What is this?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” George responded innocently.

“I
mean
I never treated any such patient.”

“Ah,” smiled George, “I believe I can help you there. She has, of late, been using the name Fran Delaney. Perhaps when you treated her—”

“I tell you I treated no such woman!”

Matt pulled the bottle of Stabilite from his pocket, held it between middle finger and thumb, rocked it back and forth on the balls of the digits. “I got a label here tellin’ a different story.”

“That’s it!” LeBeque exploded, jowls aquiver. “Leave this building or I’m calling the—” He cut himself short. Paused. Nodded to himself. Grimaced ironically. “How absurd of me. You
are
the police.”

“Man’s a quick study, George.”

“Let’s can the banter, gentlemen. I’d like to see some ID. Just to be on the safe side.”

“The man is also cautious, Matthew.”

“Maybe he’s got reason.”

They both flipped their shields. LeBeque inspected them for a long time. “All right,” he said finally, “fine,” and the shields disappeared. “What is this charade all about?”

“The charade, sir, would seem to be yours,” George accused.

“Excuse me?”

“You just pretended not to know one of your most notable clients,” Matt pointed out. “Oops. Sorry.
Patients.”

“Part of my service involves strict confidentiality. Ms. Delancey went through great lengths to keep her treatment private. She would not have
spoken
of it to anyone, much less made a recommendation.”

Appraising LeBeque, George asked slowly, “And would you say your work on Ms. Delancey was successful?”

“Exemplary. As you must know from her recent triumph.”

“You must be very proud of yourself.”

“It is
always
good to know that one’s labors have helped another achieve a lifelong dream,” he responded defensively.

“Yeah, well, the celebration’s a bit premature, Chris
tian,”
Matt asserted, mocking the affected pronunciation. “The lady’s down from bad Stabilite.”

“When?”

“Last night.”

“Pity.”

“ ‘Pity,’ ” echoed George. “Is that all you have to say?”

“What would you
have
me say?”

“You might try assuming some responsibility.”

“Me? For what?”

“For seeing that she was fully prepared for the consequences of her . . .” the word caught in George’s throat; he managed to extricate it, “. . . treatment.”

“Consequences such as . . . ?”

“Such as the high price of the habit,” Matt contributed. “Such as the existence of bum product and the dangers of ingesting it.”

LeBeque pulled himself up, huffily. “No, gentlemen, I’m sorry, my responsibility
ended
when I asked Ms. Delancey if she could afford treatment and medication. It was she who sought
me
out, remember. And when her answer was yes, I proceeded accordingly.”

“With no regard for the state of her finances after she paid you off?”

“She’s an adult, making an adult decision. It’s not my job to be a detective. That’s your department.”

“Yes . . . Of course . . . You are correct,” George nodded.

His tone was so overpolite that Matt backed up a step, saying, “Oh my.”

“Indeed,” George continued, “we are detectives, and a very minor bit of detecting led to the discovery that when you wrote Ms. Delancey’s prescription for Stabilite, you did not make it out to any of the pharmacies specializing in its handling and dispensation—such as the one
right here in this building
—but instead you gave her an
open
prescription. Good anywhere.”

“Standard practice,” LeBeque countered. “A courtesy. Ms. Delancey did not, obviously, live in the immediate area and I thought—”

George grabbed the fat man’s tie and jerked him forward so that they were almost nose to nose. “Standard perhaps,” he said in soft, lethal tones, “but of questionable ethics where expensive and controversial drugs are concerned and there is a known threat of inferior merchandise. Especially since
‘obviously’
the young lady did not live in the area because she
‘obviously’
had no access to the financial resources. Which might have led a reasonable mind to the conclusion that
‘obviously,’
and by extension, she would find it difficult if not impossible to afford the required medication.”

George tightened his grip on the tie.

“Gack,” said LeBeque.

“The unconcerned but
diligent
mind,” George continued, “might, at the very least, have filled out a
restricted
prescription to insure that if Ms. Delancey could indeed lay hands on the drug, she could get it from nowhere but a qualified apothecary. Since, in the case of Stabilite, an open prescription is generally regarded as an invitation to charlatans.”

“Let go of me!” LeBeque gasped.

“An
open prescription to Stabilite,”
George concluded, “says ‘Look at me, I’m poor, can you get me a deal?’ ”

“I’m not responsible for that, now let me go, you’re choking me!”

Interesting word, choke,
George thought.
How it sounds so much like Chorboke.

Casually, Matt said, “What a world, huh? Nobody’s responsible for nothin’.” And, then, touching George’s shoulder lightly, he said, “Let ’im go, George.”

George snapped open his fist, releasing LeBeque so suddenly that he reeled against the door.

“That was very good, partner, I’m
impressed,”
said Matt. He smiled jauntily at LeBeque. “Usually
I
get to play ‘Bad Cop.’ ”

LeBeque wagged an admonishing finger at them both, adrenaline rush giving him a new head of steam. “I gave that young lady the best treatment possible, and need I remind you, it was
elective surgery
and
no one twisted her arm!”

George cocked a hairless eyebrow. “You mean as you tried to do with me just a while ago?”

“Pah! Salesmanship hardly qualifies as coercion. And you gentlemen have taken my patience to its limit.”

Matt sighed theatrically. “Man’s right, George, we don’t have anything on him. There’s been no crime committed, at least none on the books, none we can make stick.” He patted LeBeque on his beefy arm, smiled.

Smiled like a shark.

“But wouldn’t it be fun to try?”

LeBeque sputtered. Noises, all ending in question marks.

“Well, I mean,” Matt explained, “you could try this case in the news media and never have to bother with arrests, paperwork, the expense of a trial. Let the
public
decide what constitutes negligence. Just present ’em with the facts—that you
knowingly
performed elective surgery on a patient who couldn’t afford to maintain proper treatment. What do you think, George?”

“Oh, I think the release of such a story would put a strain on his . . . patients . . . just as he said.”

“An old pun, but a gem.”

“All
right,”
LeBeque spluttered, exasperated. Then, more subdued, trying to recover some dignity, “All right. Clearly you—officers of the law are after something.” He pulled clumsily on his lapels. “How can I
—as a law abiding citizen
—be of service?”

The detectives exchanged a look. George took a step toward LeBeque. LeBeque leaned back into the door. Crooking an elbow, George pointed lightly across his chest at Matt. And spoke with exaggerated civility.

“Write out an open prescription for Stabilite. Make it out to my partner, Matthew Sikes.”

“That’s Sikes with an
i,
not a
y,”
Matt added helpfully.

LeBeque appraised the features on the human detective’s face with a clinical eye—also evident distaste.

“And let people think I worked on
you?”
he asked unpleasantly.

“Isn’t that cute,” cooed Matt. “A professional scruple . . .”

G
RAZER WAS TRYNG
to dust off his shoes. Or, more appropriately, he was trying, with intense concentration, to lift particles of dust out of them. Piece by piece.

He had Scotch tape wrapped around his fist, sticky side out, and continually applied the tape to the shoe he was working on

—
crinkle
—

and lifted—

thwop.

Applied and lifted.

Crinkle, thwop. Crinkle, thwop. Crinkle, thwop.

Every forty-five seconds or so, when the strip of tape had outlived its usefulness, he pulled it off, damning the accretion of stickum on his skin, and wrapped his hand in a fresh strip from an ever-decreasing roll. Whereupon he began knuckling the shoe again.

Crinkle, thwop.

Crinkle, thwop.

He was muttering over the task like one possessed when Sikes and Francisco knocked and entered his office.

Matt exchanged a look with his partner and spoke very tentatively.

“Uhh . . . Cap’n?”

“Suede.”

“What?”

“Suede,
dammit.” Grazer held up one of the shoes and shook it angrily in front of his face. “White suede at that, can you
believe
it?” He brushed at the top of the shoe with the untaped side of a hand, went,
“Ahhh,”
in disgust, and began banging it on the top of his desk like Khrushchev at the U.N.

“What’re you doin’?” Matt asked. He asked it rationally, but also carefully. Reasonable question though it was, he couldn’t be sure that Grazer had reason within reach.

Grazer jumped up, exasperated. “He dusted up my
shoes!”
He stepped out from behind his desk. His beige pants had a dingy gray residue clinging to the cuffs. “He didn’t do much for my slacks either,
but the shoes.
One-hundred-fifty-dollar white suede and he just barrels right into me with a loaded broom.”

“Who?”

“Albert Einstein, who the hell do you think?”

Under most circumstances, if a man claimed that Albert Einstein had sabotaged his wardrobe, you might safely assume that man had flipped over into the happy side. At the very least, that the man was being heavily sarcastic in referring to a particularly dim-witted fellow.

Bryon Grazer, though, was being entirely literal.

Albert Einstein, a youthful Newcomer, was the day-shift janitor at the precinct house.

“I’m sure he did not mean it,” George offered.